So, you may or may not have heard this theory before, but it's one of those "I wish I'd known about that earlier" things that I recently started to understand. When you are on a weight loss journey, you sometimes will experience stalls or periods of unexplained plateaus. You're doing everything right, but you're not losing weight. It can get super frustrating, but there may be a scientific reason why it's happening. I've touched on this a little bit before, but today I wanted to explain it in a little better detail to provide some clarity, and hopefully, some encouragement if you've found your ..read more

So last week, instead of doing a Walmart run with all three kiddos, I used their app for Grocery Pickup. If you haven't used it yet, it's great and I highly recommend it, especially if running in Walmart with your children is one of the more unpleasant ways you can imagine using your time. For me, I dislike the sacrifice of being able to choose all my own produce and meat (is that just me? I like to have control of the exact produce that comes home with me. Maybe I'm a control freak?) Anyway, for the most part though, they always give me great stuff. Last week, though, I brought more jalapeno ..read more

Lately, as I've been browsing through social media pages about the Keto diet, I'm starting to see a concerning pattern as to what people seem to think Keto is. I'm seeing a lot of people putting a crap ton of butter on everything they eat, eating hotdogs and bacon for every meal, and dousing everything in copious amounts of melted cheese. I see people striving to "hit their fat goals" and eating thousand-calorie "fat bombs" as a result. This morning, I literally saw someone blending a HALF STICK OF BUTTER into their "bulletproof coffee" and I almost gagged. I don't mean to sound flip, or like ..read more

Today I am going to briefly address some things that gets said to me, and others on a weight loss journey, A LOT. I will first say, I think these comments are mostly always made by well-meaning people. People that aren't trying to be critical, but encouraging in their own ways and I genuinely do appreciate when any person stops by one of my social media pages to say something nice. However, sometimes, these well-intentioned comments can be unhelpful and even a bit discouraging. I'll explain why. "You were beautiful before" or, "you were always beautiful" 99% of the time, this comment gets l ..read more

So, based off the fact that I'm posting not one, but TWO "sweet" recipes for y'all today, you can probably figure out that I've got quite a sweet tooth. A couple weeks ago, I randomly felt like experimenting in the baking department and seeing if I could create a cakey-keto-brownie that I actually liked. I tried a ruled.me recipe for a chocolate mug cake a few weeks back it was GROSS. Like, throw away after the first bite, gross. Note, I've never made brownies from scratch before, but for some reason (probably to avenge the failed mug cake experiment), I thought it was something I could try ..read more

So, cinnamon rolls have been a tradition in my family forever. As far back as I can remember, I looked forward to having them every year on Thanksgiving and Christmas morning. When I got married and started having kids, we continued the tradition, but my kids liked it so much, we eventually turned it into a Christmas, Thanksgiving, Mothers/Fathers day, birthday tradition :) We always just used the canned cinnamon rolls that come with the little bucket of frosting. They're delicious, but needless to say, LOADED with sugar and carbs. As I have gotten older, and less tolerant of sugar, this tr ..read more

So, a few weeks ago I started doing some serious thinking about how I could start eliminating processed sugar from my kid's diets. I don't fit into the "crunchy mom" category by any means, so do not get the idea that I am pretending to. However, I think that it's important that my kids don't get in the habit of having sugar three times a day, because I've now learned so much about the negative effects of overconsumption. If I can set them up for nutritional success, then I want to do that. So I started thinking about things they eat regularly, and trying to find healthier alternatives. We've ..read more

"When you feel like giving up, remember why you started." I have discussed my issues with chronic illness here before, but for those of you who don't know, I have suffered from Hashimotos Thyroiditis, Hypothyroidism, PCOS and adrenal fatigue for about 7 years. After my son was born in 2011, my health just plummeted, and I became extremely ill. My immune system shut down, letting in an infectious blood virus, and a bad case of mono. Soon after, my digestive health and functioning went out the window, and I started suffering from bad bouts of IBS three or four times a week. This was a vicious ..read more

The term "intermittent fasting" is typically an intimidating one when you first hear it, and that's understandable. The concept of going long stretches of time without eating anything is counter intuitive, especially in western cultures where we've created the tradition of eating three meals a day. IF is not something I can claim to have any sort of expertise on, but it is something that I can at least help to demystify for those that are curious. Basic Fasting Info & How This Correlates with Keto The practice of "intermittent fasting" (we'll call it IF for short) is simply a strategic ..read more

As my fourth month of Ketogenic living comes to a close, I unfortunately have no amazing (scale) progress to report for this month, and I know exactly why. I fell off the wagon a little bit the week before Mother's Day, and then spent the rest of May getting back on track. I got frustrated at the beginning of the month because, for whatever reason, my urine ketone strips weren't showing that I was in ketosis. I later learned that this may have been for hormonal reasons, or may have been because my body was actively using all the ketones it was producing for energy and didn't have any to dis ..read more